Living Silence
by cypris88
Summary: Before the Force awoke in Rey, it dreamt. / Elaboration on some of Rey's scenes from the movie
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:** This story elaborates on various scenes from the movie as Rey becomes aware of the Force. I'm writing this with the assumption that Rey is not related to Kylo Ren.

* * *

 **Living Silence**

While most people thought the Graveyard of Giants was dangerous, desolate and silent as a tomb, they were mistaken about one thing – the Graveyard wasn't silent at all.

I had been scavenging the wreckage of starfighters and the great warship since I was old enough to carry parts, and had grown accustomed to the odd clanks, hisses and moans of machinery rotting in the heat as they sank into their graves of sand.

But there were other sounds, too. Sounds that didn't make sense; that shouldn't have been there.

At the outpost, I occasionally tried asking fellow scavengers if they ever heard the same things I did, but they always shook their heads and looked away from me. Perhaps I was simply going crazy earlier than predicted.

It only happened on days I worked alone – which, if I was being truthful with myself, was more often than not. While I worked quietly, extracting parts from a ship long dead, it always started with a strange intensity in the air around me. It was the feeling of being watched by something immortal and patient, and while it didn't make any intentional noise, I sensed it all the same – a sort of living silence manifested by the galaxy itself.

Then, if the wind sighed through the metal corpses in just the right places, and I tilted my head at a particular angle, I could hear the sounds that should not have been there at all: the wailing of proton missiles seeking out their targets, warbling groans of metal bending in unintended ways, even the echoing screams of crew who had lost their lives.

I always left the Graveyard early on those days, despite knowing the lack of parts weighing down my speeder bike meant a hungry night ahead of me.

–

I never expected to encounter another area of living silence outside of the Graveyard of Giants, yet the moment I reached the bottom of the cellar steps in Maz's tavern, I knew I had found one. I sensed unearthly voices sliding through the air around me, beckoning me down the hall, guiding me to open the lid of the ancient wooden chest. I couldn't understand their intent, nor why it was so important I reach for the lightsaber lying innocuously on the fabric inside. But the moment I touched it, the voices rose into a piercing scream, creating a shrine of agony inside my head. I could do nothing but silently scream with them, lost to the horrifying images of my vision.

–

The Stormtroopers had been left behind long ago, and I assumed myself alone in the forest. I paused to catch my breath and bearings, furiously thinking through my next move.

A lightsaber sparked to life in the distance, but my ears, unaccustomed to the way sound bounced around the forest, failed to pinpoint the source before the dense undergrowth absorbed the noise. My breath caught as seconds later the saber sizzled again, closer this time, but the location of my pursuer remained masked by the strange acoustics surrounding me.

Adrenaline began to pulse heavily through my veins. Whoever had tracked me this deep into the forest knew I was here, and I knew they were coming for me.

The feeling of being stalked was not new to me, but deeply unsettling here on this alien planet. Backing up carefully, I yearned for the open desert of Jakku where my foe wouldn't be able to hide in the foliage. Even with the blaster gripped tightly between my clammy hands, I felt vulnerable without my familiar staff.

My steps led me to a narrow, rocky trench where I sought cover. The lightsaber's hum echoed down the exposed stone, intertwining with my distressed gasps for air. I held the pistol out in front of me, finger trembling against the trigger.

My skin prickled in warning just before a dark figure emerged ahead of me. The red glow of the lightsaber flashed before my eyes, but it wasn't until I saw the figure's distinctive black and silver helmet that absolute terror gripped my heart. This being had been in my vision at Maz's tavern, and now it was here, and it wanted to kill me.

I fired several bolts, hoping to drive the figure back and give me time to escape. My jaw dropped as the figure effortlessly flicked its lightsaber to deflect every single bolt. How was that even _possible_? Was it using the Force? Was it truly _that_ powerful?

Instinct compelled my feet to move before I had even made the conscious decision to run. I dashed down the trench, firing more bolts as the figure advanced in my wake, then spun and scrambled up the side to higher ground.

The dark being followed me, none of my bolts having found their mark. I retreated several steps, desperately squeezing the trigger over and over, but then the figure flung out its arm and a black aura bloomed around its entire body. A numbing wave of dark energy soaked deep into my skin, coating me like oil. I involuntarily jerked to a dead stop. Every muscle in my body became rigid as metal. What was happening? I could still feel my muscles flexing and straining – my mind screaming at them to _move_ – but some greater force held me completely motionless. My throat was also unnaturally constricted, and I pulled in shuddering breaths as the figure moved closer.

It was still surrounded by the strange black aura that seemed to coincide with the use of its powers. My mind scrambled to figure out what it was. If the fabled Jedi were real like Han had told me, that must mean their ancient enemy, the Sith, were real as well. Is that what this creature was? A Sith Lord, mired in the dark side of the Force?

It didn't matter, I hissed in my head. It was a coward for freezing me in place, not granting me the dignity of a fair fight. My fingers itched to strangle it with my bare hands.

The dark being stood silent for a moment, then advanced toward me.

"The girl I've heard so much about," the figure said, his voice dispassionate but resonating.

Soft footfalls circled behind me, and had I not been rooted to the ground I would have spun and kicked him with every ounce of strength in my body. Whomever – _whatever_ this creature was, he wanted BB-8's star map so the First Order could find and destroy Luke Skywalker, and that made him my enemy.

"The droid," he hissed from behind me. "Where is it?"

The red lightsaber whipped into my vision and paused, crackling furiously, mere inches away from my cheek. I was surprised to not feel any heat emanating from the blade, but knew a simple flick would take my head clean off.

I swallowed my scream and stayed silent, not trusting my voice, and certainly not trusting this being to spare me should I tell him anything about BB-8.

"Where _is it_?" he repeated, moving the lightsaber a fraction closer to my face.

I pinched my eyes shut as the unstable hum of the blade drowned out all other sounds. "I... don't know," I choked out past the unnatural tightness in my throat.

Unexpectedly, the lightsaber dropped away and the figure seemed to sigh in disapproval. He re -entered my field of vision and sheathed his weapon at his side.

Then his gloved hand reached for my face, and I experienced a sensation so disturbing that my face twisted into a scream and my limbs shook despite the powerful force holding me still.

There was an immense, vice-like pressure against the sides of my head, while simultaneously my brain fought to expand and double in size. There was no longer enough space inside my own head, and I realized it was _his_ presence, there with me, inside my brain.

Yet just as I made this terrible connection, I found myself suddenly recalling my flight here in the forest, running with Han's blaster in hand. The recent event seemed strangely cloudy, though, as if it had been something I dreamt rather than experienced barely an hour past. I struggled to recount the details, though a tiny part of me didn't understand why I was so fixated on doing so. The Stormtroopers had been chasing me through the forest, but I'd been upset before that. I visualized the echoing cries of a small child at Maz's tavern, venturing into the cellar, and discovering the lightsaber which had sparked that horrible, unwanted vision…

'A vision...' something murmured inside my head.

Wait, this wasn't right. I hadn't said that. Furthermore, it hadn't been said _out loud_. I grit my teeth to help force the memories away, and the light and sounds of the forest abruptly swept me back into the present, staring at the hand of the creature still stretched out in front of me. It was _him_ , controlling my thoughts, reading my mind, my _memories_. How was he using the Force for such an atrocious purpose?

The black aura flared as the figure flexed his hand in irritation. The pressure instantly returned and once more my thoughts were no longer my own. The forest faded, replaced by blue lights in a black hallway, which fell apart under my very feet… a hand grasping an old white and blue astromech droid... a barren field littered with corpses while rain poured from above… I remembered thinking that I hadn't known it was possible for so much water to fall from the sky, and I felt amusement at my own naivety about such things – wait wait wait, that was _not_ an emotion that _I_ was feeling, it had come from the creature who had taken over my mind – then the pressure clamped down so tightly on my skull I thought it would surely crumple like rusted metal.

Through the pain, I recounted the final moments of the vision: the corpses in the dark field… a group of black figures illuminated in red by a distinctly shaped lightsaber... For a moment, I was startled by this, but again perceived that the feeling hadn't originated from me. It had come from _him_ , recognizing himself in my own vision, and the realization was enough to draw a small portion of my thoughts back under my control.

I wrenched myself away from the memory and emerged into the shadowy, metaphysical depths of my mind. Above and below me were countless flickers of light – my memories, knowledge, and feelings as they existed inside my head. The images from my vision, still unwillingly being accessed by the dark being, were surrounded by a black aura of corruption, the same one I had seen around the figure as he used his powers. And though I knew the dark figure was still physically standing in front of me, I could sense his mental presence lingering _behind_ me, at the back of my skull in a way that made the hairs rise on my neck.

It dawned on me that my mind was now a battlefield, and I had no chance of winning as long as my attacker remained behind me. However, the physical power and pressure holding my mind and body in place prevented me from turning around. Enraged, I thrashed and kicked and stomped, and though the motion was invisible to physical eyes, it was evidently felt by the being inside my head.

'Stop it, girl. Show me the rest,' he ordered, and again the words echoed around my skull though I knew my ears had not actually heard them being spoken.

I was thrown headfirst back into the part of my vision I hated most. Blistering sand dunes formed in front of me, accompanied by the heartbreaking, high pitched wails of a small child realizing she was being left behind on an isolated, dying planet.

'Abandoned, and then forgotten,' the dark voice sneered.

His scorn infuriated me and I clawed my way out of the vision. Knowing he could read my thoughts, I used it against him the only way I could. 'GET OUT OF MY HEAD!' I screamed, over and over, though my lips merely trembled and I didn't make a sound. I imagined that our bodies standing in the forest must look strangely subdued, however the battle raging inside my head was anything but silent.

The dark being just laughed at me, but his focus shifted away from my vision in the cellar. He breezed through my heated conversation with Finn (and I felt the being's immense displeasure upon seeing Finn in my thoughts) before moving to the heartrending choice when I turned down Han's job offer (again, another wave of fury, perhaps due to his hatred of my allies?).

Control of my own awareness started slipping as he sped around my brain. I focused on simply keeping my head above water, as it were, instead of drowning in the images flashing across my vision at a frightening speed. But suddenly, the images dissolved as he discovered one particularly interesting memory...

"The map. You've seen it." He spoke out loud, though I could still sense waves of surprise and greed emanate from our overlapping consciousnesses inside my head.

And there before us, still dreamlike but rapidly growing more vivid, was the memory where BB-8 had shown us the map to Luke Skywalker.

My stomach flipped as complete horror overcame me. This creature working in league with the First Order now knew I had the map in my _memories_.

I can't explain how, but I snatched the entire memory and moved _away_ from the black figure's presence in my head. I burrowed into the depths of my brain, imagining all the flickering images I passed as layers shielding me and the map from his grasp. The pressure lessened as I dove deeper, and I pictured a lone rocky island in a vast, endless ocean – one that I had dreamt of many times on Jakku. It crystallized before me and I landed there, hiding at the core of my very existence, a prisoner in my own head.

'I will find you,' the dark being seethed, his rage turning the ocean as black as oil. The pressure started building again as he approached, somehow, from every direction at once.

I felt the familiar sensation of being watched, but was shocked to realize that it wasn't the creature chasing me – it was the living silence, here with me on my island. Voices buffeted against me insistently, but I didn't trust them considering what they'd led me to the last time I'd listened.

'Leave me alone, leave me _alone_ ,' I cried. I clutched the memory closer to my chest and thought of oceans made of water, sand and stars.

Abruptly, everything around me fell away and I was back in the forest, alone in my head, albeit still immobile.

A Stormtrooper spoke nearby, and though I couldn't discern the words, I clearly heard the dark being's reply. "Pull the division out. Forget the droid," he ordered in that detached tone I hated so fiercely. "We have what we need."

I trembled and my heart sank, and then there was a sudden, painful pull at the base of my skull and the rest of me sank, too.


	2. Chapter 2

I dreamed of the island.

These dreams always began with a long, patient climb up an ancient set of steps. My feet paused on the weathered rock as I bent to smooth my fingers over the grass, damp from a recent storm. The carpet of greenery hugged every rocky crevice of the island and I marveled at how readily life flourished in this place, even on bare stone.

I reached the clearing at the top of the island, where silvery clouds hung so low I thought I might reach up and tug them down. Nothing new ever happened after this point in the dream. I never saw how I arrived there, nor did I ever leave. I just simply _existed_ , perpetually alone, until the island faded.

This dream was different.

As soon as I stepped into the clearing, I sensed the immortal presence of the living silence. It no longer frightened me like it had used to in the Graveyard, and I think I was slowly recognizing the entity for what it truly was. We regarded each other, both of us using eyes that did not physically exist, and then, after a moment, I tilted my head to the side.

The wind blew restless whispers against my ears, as if a hundred people were mumbling words at me in unison. Though the words were unclear, the message was not: I was running out of time, and would need to make a decision soon.

 _What decision?_ I wondered. Then something slammed into me with enough force to lift me clear off my feet. The edge of the clearing sailed past me as the momentum carried me impossibly far out over the open ocean, and then I plunged head first into waves as cold and dark as night.

–

My head shot forward the instant I woke, and the first thing I registered was a headache throbbing at the base of my skull. The second, and more daunting thing, was that I couldn't move.

I tried to pull my hands and legs out their restraints, but some sort of energy field built directly into the chair held them trapped. At that moment, I felt the barest whisper of pressure against the back of my head, as if a ghostly fingertip had trailed upward from the base of my skull.

My gaze snapped up. The dark being who had taken me captive in the woods of Takodana crouched before me on the floor.

"Where am I?"

He took his time in answering. "You are my guest."

"Where are the others?"

"Do you mean the murderers, traitors and thieves you call friends? You'll be relieved to hear I have no idea."

 _Infuriating_. An agent of the First Order was the last person in the galaxy who could presume to judge my friends. If he wasn't such a coward to keep me trapped in this infernal chair, I'd smash his stupid helmet apart and then beat his head in with it.

The fingertip brushed lightly against my scalp again, and I realized he was using his powers to sense my emotions, taste my thoughts, without merging his mind fully with my own.

"You still want to kill me." He sounded thoughtful, almost... pleased by this, as if my anger satisfied him in some way.

"That's what happens when you're being hunted by a creature in a mask." My unspoken challenge to remove the helmet hung in the air.

And then the dark being legitimately shocked me: he did as I asked. His gloved hands reached up to depress some sort of latch on either side of his neck. The helmet began to come apart – gears whirring and metal parts clicking – and for a fleeting moment the mechanic in me itched to dismantle it and figure out exactly how it all worked.

But as soon as the black figure lifted the helmet off of his head and revealed a shock of black hair and scornful eyes, I knew he had done me no favors by complying with my request. He wasn't ancient, or twisted by evil, covered in scales, disfigured by corruption or even unattractive. He was human. He was young – perhaps only a few years older than me.

Worst of all, the look in his eyes sent fear shivering up my spine. Men had looked at me that way before on Jakku, when they wanted something from me and were considering trying to take it by force.

But never in my life had I been so afraid I would lose.

I dropped my gaze to an unfixed spot on the floor, breathing unsteadily.

He walked closer and pressed the helmet onto a pedestal. The impact reverberated like far more than a lump of metal should, and a silhouette of darkness flared around it.

"Tell me about the droid." His voice, though no longer amplified by his horrid helmet, was deep and calm.

I inhaled and started to ramble. "He's a BB unit with a selenium drive and a thermal..."

"He's carrying a section of a navigational chart," he interrupted, unimpressed with my tactic. "And we have the rest, recovered from the archives of the Empire, but we need the last piece, and somehow you convinced the droid to show it to you. You," he scoffed in disbelief. "A scavenger."

My hatred for him soared.

"You know I can take whatever I want." His mental touch returned, cold fingers cupping the back of my head, and again I felt his smug satisfaction at sensing my hate – and my fear.

'Do what you want, but you aren't getting the map,' I challenged wordlessly, knowing he could hear my thoughts.

'Surely you don't believe that,' he replied in my head.

Then he reached out his gloved hand and I knew what was coming next.

Intense pressure crushed my skull from all sides as he effortlessly merged his mind with my own. From the back of my head, his mental presence casually rifled through my recent memories, taunting me with controlled sweeps of dark power.

I focused like I had before in the forest, backing up from the memories to keep a safe distance. It was easier to stay detached this time, and I discovered I could navigate around my head more freely now that I'd had practice. The trick was to imagine flying instead of running.

All the components of my existence glittered around me like a strange spectrum of stars. And behind me... I twisted and for the first time I could see the being's manifestation lurking in the shadows, like a black, malevolent sandstorm on the horizon. He continued to hunt through my memories, and I realized that though he had found it before, the specific location of the starmap's memory eluded him now – like knowing of something that had happened in a book, but not remembering the exact page where it occurred.

I edged closer to memories of BB-8 and the others aboard the Falcon, prepared to guard them with my life. His focus snapped toward me as he caught me moving, and I quickly thought of a distraction to buy some time.

'I don't even know your name,' I thought to him.

'I am Kylo Ren,' he offered calmly while he returned to picking apart the memory where I had last spoken to BB-8 in the forest. 'Master of the Knights of Ren, a commander of the First Order and Apprentice to the Supreme Leader. And you?'

I foolishly said nothing, and without warning he plunged straight into the memories where I had recently introduced myself to Finn on board the Millennium Falcon.

"I'm Finn," I saw my friend say to me. Kylo Ren, for some reason, scoffed at the name. Then I watched myself reply: "I'm Rey."

'Rey... No surname, Rey?' he inquired lightly.

I ground my teeth, livid at his constant insults about my heritage and lifestyle as a scavenger on Jakku. I instinctively reached out in my head for a memory of pain – the searing pain of hot oil on bare skin – and before I knew exactly what I was doing nor how I was doing it, I had formed it into a crude, crackling ball of energy and shot it at the shadows where he lurked in the back of my mind.

It burst and zapped Kylo Ren upon impact. A shockwave of pressure rippled around the inside of my head and I sensed his astonishment that I had discovered a way to fight back.

I immediately swept my arms out to gather more memories – the sting of sand in my eyes, my parched and aching throat, shame at being cheated out of rations, of broken bones, sunburns, starvation, desperation, _loneliness_ – memories I had in abundance now that I knew how to _use_ them.

My elation was short lived when I was hit between the eyes, _hard_ , by a blast of raw pain. I sprawled backwards in my mind, losing control of my balance like I was tumbling through space. Kylo Ren had bypassed slinging mere memories of pain and tapped straight into its source.

Two more blows hit the side of my head and pain radiated sharply from a spot inside my skull. I retreated, searching for a place to hide, or anything I could use as a weapon. Before I could defend myself, Ren shot forward to scoop up the memories I had gathered as ammunition – memories of the worst moments of my life – and with devastating proficiency he flung them straight at me. They shattered against my face and I inhaled the memories like shards of glass.

 _No one to take care of me, a burden to those I went scavenging with, fingers raw and bleeding from scrubbing grease off of metal, always thirsty, never full, no one my age, no one who cared, too frightened to leave, ashamed that it was easier to stay..._

"Aw, you're so lonely. So afraid to leave." I jerked in surprise as the sound of his voice broke through the pain. "At night, desperate to sleep. You imagine an ocean. I see it," he crooned. "I see the island."

 _My sanctuary._ I escaped the only way I knew how: seizing the memory of the starmap and fleeing downward, seeking out the safety of the island from my dreams. It materialized almost immediately and I landed in the clearing, breathing heavily in both my lungs and my mind. I desperately wished Finn, Chewie and Han were there with me. I heard Ren scoff in my head.

"And Han Solo," he continued out loud. "You feel like he's the father you never had. He would have disappointed you."

His thrashing, black manifestation surrounded the island, dimming the clouds overhead to twilight as they bloomed with lightning. A brash gust of wind whipped the black ocean waves below into a frenzy and nearly tore the memory out of my grasp. Dark energy coalesced around Kylo Ren as he prepared a final blow to demolish my hiding spot.

I loathed myself at that moment for being defenseless – for not knowing how to fight back. I knew this enemy would unremorsefully tear me to shreds before using the map to track down and kill Luke Skywalker. I couldn't let that happen. _I had to defend the map._

"Get out of my head!" I hissed through clenched teeth, gripping the memory of the starmap so tightly my fingers and head throbbed in unison.

Kyle Ren lashed out – then, out of nowhere, a brilliant shield of light emerged around the entire island a split second before his blow struck. It cracked and sparked against the shield and the pressure in my head squeezed so hard I went blind. The ground trembled beneath me, but my vision returned and I realized the shield held my island together in one piece.

Ren abruptly retreated, first moving away from the island and then drawing out of my mind completely. I sensed his physical presence leave my side, and the stark walls of the cell refocused in front of me. It seemed as if ages had passed while I fought him inside my head.

But something else was in the room now, too – that familiar, strange intensity of being watched. As soon as I recognized it, the living silence did something it had never done before: it pushed gently but insistently against my mind. It wanted something.

I closed my eyes to concentrate. The interrogation chamber fell away and I was once more standing on my island, shielded high above the waters of the ocean. The living silence was already there, waiting and expectant. What did it want?

For a moment I stood in silent confusion. A breeze from the receding storms toyed with my unbound wisps of hair. Then Maz Kanata's words came back to me: _Close your eyes. Feel it... the light. It has always been there..._

I closed my eyes a second time, my mental vision of the island going dim. Though I was left in utter blackness, the whispered urgings of the living silence became clear. I breathed deeply and nodded my head in assent...

And then something inside of me not only awoke, it erupted from an abyss inside of my very soul. The living silence, _the Force_ , enveloped me like rays of the sun, warming my skin from inside and out. Light danced in rivulets across my vision, drawing lines and ancient symbols that illuminated the darkness surrounding me. How had I _ignored_ this my entire life? Why had I let this power slumber for so long?

I imagined reaching my hand toward the light, and in response it converged around my fingertips and hummed through my veins. It waited only for me to give it purpose.

"I know you've seen the map."

I heard Kylo Ren's voice from a great distance as I marveled at my new source of power. I opened my eyes to see Ren, now standing in front of me, engulfed in a pillar of shadows – dark energy that I could now perceive with the use of the Force.

"It's in there," he said, though his voice had a tremor of uncertainty. "And now you'll give it to me."

I leaned forward in the chair, summoning energy from my abyss of light and pulling it into existence in the very air around me.

'We'll see.'

His lip curled at my brashness and he extended his hand toward me, calling forth corrupted energy of his own. My new powers allowed me to interpret his own use of the Force in a way I could visualize and understand. Shadows raced across the contours of his arm and leapt into the air, straight toward my face. I pressed my light into a barrier in front of me, but his consciousness crashed against mine with such intensity that my ears rang and I tumbled backward in my own head. A low pitched rumbling, like a choir of guttural groans, reverberated around my mind. I was hit by a powerful swell of emotions – aggression, fear, and seething, uncontrollable anger.

"Don't be afraid. I feel it too," Ren breathed.

I visualized pushing the emotions away from me, wiping them from my mind like grease from my palm, and they receded as quickly as they had come.

'The Force surrounds you,' he whispered to me mentally, the words tickling my ears from the inside, 'but you use it like a child. Give me the map, and I will make you its master.'

"I'm not giving you... anything," I said, shaking and burning with energy.

"We'll see," he replied evenly, eyes gleaming in anticipation.

Ren flexed his hand, but I blinked and saw a strange, flickering version of his form stick his left hand out to the side. A lightless aura emanated from his entire body as he called to the dark side of the Force. Particles of black energy emerged from nowhere and chaotically surged toward his hand, creating an outline of his lightsaber. It flashed in and out of sight – not truly manifested in the physical world, but a deadly concentration of energy all the same.

A rivulet of sweat threaded down my temple and I took a heavy breath. The odds of the battle were clear: if I didn't have a weapon, I would lose. Fortunately, Ren had just shown me how to create one.

I used the Force, for there was no simpler way to describe it, to summon shining white energy toward my own hand. It flowed in even, symmetrical lines – a marked difference from the turbulent movements of dark Force energy – and formed into a replica of my quarterstaff from Jakku.

I met Ren's unyielding gaze and grinned. _This_ put us on even ground.

I launched the energy of the Force toward him, imagining it in my head as I would plan my movements while battling with my staff. I struck furiously, putting as much mental weight as possible behind the blow. Light beamed toward Ren, but he intercepted it with a shaft of shadowy energy from his forged lightsaber. The opposing forces collided, melting together until they nullified each other and vanished.

I pulled more of the Force into the air around me and lashed out relentlessly, mentally hurling several blinding blasts of power toward him. Though he matched them like before, repelling my attack took his full concentration. I pressed the advantage and flung a blow at his head, shaping the angle of impact like it was the tip of my staff. At the last moment he repulsed my attack with a blast of pure Force energy.

The air shimmered like a heatwave in the open desert. Through the haze I saw him thrust forward with the lightsaber of dark Force energy. Instinct drove me to raise my own mental staff and focus every ounce of my being into blocking the attack. Kylo Ren's outstretched hand shook and strained as he pushed several more vicious waves of power at me, seemingly attacking from all directions at once.

I imagined how I had intuitively piloted the Falcon during the escape from Jakku and let those same motions guide me now. I slashed and blocked with bursts of Force energy, controlling the flow of battle and steadily beating down every defense he offered with his own power. I grit my teeth in determination, pushing forward against the restraints of the chair. Though his face betrayed no distress, I sensed Ren's bewilderment at my strength as he fought to regain the upper hand. Our physical bodies shook under the strain of the mental battle, while in our minds we tirelessly shaped and expelled energy with lightning quick impulses of will and instinct.

Then his form flickered again, and he shifted his mental weight to draw power into his arms for a devastating burst of Force energy. However, the movement drew him off balance and he struggled against the air as if pushing through quicksand.

Moving faster than I thought possible, I imagined shifting my grip on my own Force staff and slammed a hammer of energy directly into his jaw. His head flickered, one version absorbing the blow, while the alternate form's head snapped back with almost supernatural force.

The room around me blurred and streamed past my vision like I'd entered lightspeed. A split second later, I no longer existed in the interrogation room, bound by gravity and the chair's restraints. I was _in his head_.

While my own mindscape reminded me of a glittering ocean of stars, Kylo Ren's was a turbulent, molten storm. I floated in the center of a perfect sphere of chaos, while all around me his memories and thoughts twisted together like serpentine currents of oil.

Kylo Ren's dark form flickered into existence in front of me, rage seething on his face. I realized I couldn't waste the advantage I had just earned in our strange mental duel and spun to face the outside of the sphere. I plunged my hands into the currents of memories and ruthlessly ransacked his mind.

Flashes of past events flooded my vision – a burning village at night time, chasing me through the forest of Takodana, hurtling toward a planet with an enormous construction on the surface.

Then I sensed Ren's presence flying toward me, intent on throwing me out of his head for good. At the last moment I spun and shot a blast of energy toward his eyes. The blow threw him off course and he crashed into the sphere right next to me, but I felt his grip clench on my forearm (though from far away eyes I saw that he wasn't even touching me) and for an infinite second we wobbled on the precipice of the sphere's edge together before falling... not down, but _deeper_ into his mind.

For I moment I surrendered to the sensation of tumbling through space. We broke through memories as we fell, and they ruptured into ephemeral, wailing screams. My soul filled with the emotions that fueled his existence – pride, shame, hatred – and I felt a second heartbeat in my chest that was out of rhythm with my own.

Ren shoved me violently, trying to propel me out of his mind, but I pushed back with my own Force energy and used it to slow my descent while gathering it around me like a shield.

I needed a memory to use against him to end this encounter on my terms, before he stole back into my mind and took the map to Luke Skywalker. I wasn't even entirely sure what I was looking for until I fell into it: a dark memory, more brittle than the rest, of a melted and misshapen mask laying atop a pillar. Kylo Ren spoke desperately in the memory, and though the words were muffled, his emotions engulfed my mind and heart. _Fear_. Fear of being too weak, too soft, fear of ridicule... fear of _failure_.

My mind strained against simultaneously holding together the Force shield while remembering how to form words.

"You..." I hissed out loud, low and vicious. I felt Ren jerk in surprise, and our vision jointly swarmed with images of his memory, to where we struggled and grappled inside his head, to the physical world of the interrogation cell.

"You're afraid... that you will never be as strong as _Darth Vader_."

Then I clenched every muscle in my body, concentrated with every part of my mind, ignited all of the otherworldly power I now knew I possessed – and walloped Kylo Ren square in the face so hard that shockwaves rattled the entire room.

He stumbled away from me, both mentally and physically, and I was jolted out of his mind and firmly back into my own. We both gasped for breath as Ren's fear and astonishment swirled in the air between us, and I could sense his thoughts though I knew I was not supposed to hear them: 'Who _are_ you?'

He summoned his helmet to his hand and stormed out of the interrogation room, leaving dark ripples of energy in his wake.

I managed to control my breathing and my pulse eventually slowed. For a proud, quiet moment I relished in my victory. I knew, however, that this was only the beginning of my battle with Kylo Ren.


	3. Chapter 3

I slid through the shadows of Starkiller Base like a phantom. My chances at escaping the base alive were slim, but I knew clever use of my Force powers could tip the odds in my favor. The only problem was that I barely understood how to use them.

I sought cover in a doorway, closing my eyes and clearing my mind of extraneous thoughts. I sensed the living energy of the base all around me – particularly the low hum of machinery and a high pitched whine that must have been electrical power. The noises did me no good, however, and I imagined carefully twisting a radio tuner in my head to filter out those frequencies. Holding my breath, I could now hear... people. Heavy footsteps marched from the direction I had come, while a floor below me a man sneezed and resumed his muffled conversation.

I dropped my focus down toward the conversation, imagining the Force pulling the soundwaves of every word closer to my ears. The man was discussing a shuttle bay – a way I could escape the base. I poured energy into his mind like I'd done with the Stormtrooper guarding my cell – not merging my mind with his, exactly, but soaking his brain with enough power to strongly influence his thoughts.

 _Provide directions to the shuttle bay out loud,_ I thought to him, carefully sliding the suggestion toward his mind. However, it didn't fully catch, and instead hung suspended between us. Though I couldn't see him, I imagined the man had a very glazed look in his eyes.

 _Your companion just asked for directions. Don't keep him waiting,_ I added hastily, remembering that providing a motive and a sense of urgency had made the trick more effective against the Stormtrooper. I sensed the suggestion sink into his mind, and then...

"Take the hallway to the right," the man said out loud, "go down to floor five, and follow the signs for the East Cargo Bay."

"I know where it is, moron," his companion snapped as I withdrew my focus and left the shelter of the doorway.

I moved quickly through the base, blaster held high as I routinely paused and pushed my new Force-enhanced hearing outwards. It was easy to avoid the noisy roving squads of Stormtroopers, but then I turned a corner and almost smacked into the back of a silent wheeled sentry droid. I carefully stepped backward, imagining the Force propelling the sound of my footsteps away from the droid's sensors, and managed to retreat before it noticed me.

It took an inhuman amount of effort to maintain my fledgling connection to the Force. I continuously imagined binding its energy to me lest it atrophy and leave me powerless. My concentration wavered with every step, already strained from my earlier duel with Kylo Ren. As I traversed the mammoth First Order base in search of the shuttle bay, I despaired that I would make it off the planet alive.

Then I turned a corner and practically ran into Han, Chewie and Finn. It was impossible to fully express the magnitude of joy and relief that rushed through my entire body. I had truly never experienced the warm glow of having friends who were willing to die to protect me. And when Chewie told me it had all been Finn's idea, I enveloped him in a crushing hug before he could see my lower lip tremble.

"How did you escape?" Finn's chest rumbled as he spoke. As a Stormtrooper, he had firsthand experience with Kylo Ren's temper. I'm sure he was amazed to find me conscious, not to mention scampering about the corridors of the base.

"I can't explain it," I whispered, thinking of my Force powers and mental battle with Ren, "and you wouldn't believe it."

However, I knew that once I _could_ explain it, Finn would believe every word because he was my friend. I held that precious feeling close to my heart.

–

I knew the exact moment Han died, but it wasn't when the lightstaber erupted through his chest. It was just before, when the sun's light faded from the sky for the very last time.

The oscillator core filled with shadows, though none were so dark as the black aura that haunted Kylo Ren. However, I noticed something in his aura that hadn't been there before: brief silvery flashes, like lightning relentlessly blooming and dying inside storm clouds. I couldn't hear the words Han exchanged with his son, but clearly understood the indecision tormenting Kylo Ren.

I tried to connect with his mind, begging him to not kill Han, but my power grew fragile across such a huge distance and was blown away like dust. The silvery flashes slowed and shriveled in size, the frail source of light – of _goodness_ – in Kylo Ren clearly suffocating under the evil that worshiped him.

Thick braids of energy continuously wove around Ren's form and then dispersed, as if in anarchy with themselves. But finally, the last bloom of light, positioned right over his heart, withered from existence and my stomach plummeted to my feet. Then, every single tendril of energy shuddered and curled inward – and exploded outward at the same moment as the lightsaber's blade. I cried out as if my own heart had been punctured.

Kylo Ren's gaze shot to mine like a magnet. The calculated loathing in his eyes transformed into unfathomable anger. Finn and I turned and ran.

–

Finn's agonized scream jolted me wide awake. Hazy purple flashes rent the air nearby, and while my mind struggled to understand what I was seeing, my body wailed at how miserably cold it was. Why was I lying in the snow?

The purple lights separated into separate blue and red light sabers, and all of the horrifying events of the past hour hurtled through my thoughts –- Kylo Ren murdering Han Solo, _his father_ , escaping from the collapsing base, Ren's lightsaber sparking to life before us in the woods – and now he and Finn were battling furiously yards away from me.

The blazing red saber flashed in a downward arc with a powerful finality and the woods went still. A horrifying, numbing dread sunk into my skin.

Black energy snaked across the snow and twisted through tree trunks, seeking Luke's saber buried in the snow. Thinking of BB-8 and the map to Luke, I knew immediately I wouldn't let Kylo Ren take the saber without a fight. It belonged to Luke Skywalker, and I would return it to him.

'It belonged to my GRANDFATHER!' Kylo Ren bellowed wordlessly in my head, sending me a blistering wave of anger wrapped around an image of Darth Vader's helmet.

I flinched but then volleyed my own hatred back into his head, combined with the agonizing moment when he ripped his lightsaber free of Han Solo's chest.

He ignored me, fingers grasping harder at the air. His Force energy descended upon the saber to pick it up, but the black current of power merely slipped around the hilt like grains of sand. The saber was resisting him.

I flung my arm out, using the Force to lengthen my reach across the snow. Beams of energy shot through the air, straight and shining and perfect, and carefully engulfed the saber in light. Ren tried to bully it away with his own mass of black power, and for a moment the saber simply rocked from side to side as our forces collided around it like clouds in a storm. Then, the saber hurtled through mid-air and fit into my palm so decisively I wondered if it possessed a will of its own.

I don't know who charged first, but moments later my lightsaber rebounded off of Ren's with a spectacular crash. Trees crumpled to the ground around us. We fought like demons, our sabers colliding so hard they shaved off sparks of raw plasma energy.

I had never fought with a sword before, much less a lightsaber that could take off my own head, so my blows were unbalanced and clumsy. Kylo Ren steadily beat me backward as the ground trembled underneath us, and I ended up teetering on the precipice of a newly formed canyon in the earth.

"You need a teacher," Ren shouted at me over the blazing hum of our joined sabers. "I can show you the ways of the Force!"

He pushed a tightly constructed image into my brain – being important and lovely and fierce, becoming so powerful together that our shadow of fear suffocated the entire galaxy. The sensations were so sharp and foreign that I closed my eyes to shut them out. I did not want any part of the future he offered.

'Join me,' Ren breathed in my mind, but I ignored him and instead focused on the currents of Force energy threading through the air around me. I tugged several strands closer and wove them around my lightsaber, imagining the power suffusing through my hand til it was bound to the hilt. The blade become an extension of my arm and the plasmic energy pulsed in tune with my heart.

I opened my eyes and Ren already knew my answer.

' _NEVER_.'

Our lightsabers whirled and clashed, but my blows were heavy and true now that my saber was augmented by the Force. I wailed my saber against his own with every ounce of passion and strength I possessed.

Ren's movements slowed and I viciously pressed my advantage, slicing off a piece of his cloak and then leaving a smoking hole in his shoulder. However, he recovered from every blow like a machine fueled by hatred. If I hadn't been fighting for my life, I would have been awed by the way the dark side rewarded his fury with strength.

A bold kick to the chest sent Kylo to the ground, but he staggered to his feet once more and then used a move I was utterly unprepared for: a whip of dark energy lashed around my hand and pulled it straight into his grip. Unable to wrench it free, I used his own trick against him and sealed my other hand around his.

We grappled for control, gasping and straining as I sought to extinguish his saber in the snow at our feet. The last of my strength was quickly fading like warm breath exhaled into cold air. If I didn't end the battle now I wouldn't survive. Righteous fury bellowed through my veins at the thought of losing my chance to avenge Han Solo and dying at the hands of a coward who hid behind more than one mask.

I yanked a mental handful of energy toward me and suddenly moved faster than my mind could physically process, my reactions enhanced to supernatural speeds by the Force. When my brain caught up to my body I was standing over Ren as his blood sizzled on the tip of my lightsaber.

This time, he did not stand up. A glaring gash split his face from eyebrow to chin and the wound afforded me a grim satisfaction. Triumph and pride and power pounded through my veins.

A rumbling filled my head, resonating at a frequency so deep it vibrated down my spine. A strange voice muttered in my ear. Though the words were guttural and foreign, they pushed against my mind the same way the living silence had in the interrogation cell. Then, with a sinuous grace, the voice overpowered me and merged seamlessly with my mind before I understood what was happening. Hate and bitterness coursed through my thoughts like poison.

Overwhelmed by the dark train of thought, my fingers flexed against the hilt of the lightsaber. The bloodlust firing through my heart created a tempting fantasy where I drove the blade straight through Kylo Ren's heart, just as he had done to Han Solo.

Then the lightsaber zapped me, its angry pulse of energy a glaring reminder of the legacy I held in my hands. This very saber had been crafted by hands that later served the dark side, and it would not suffer being wielded by any who walked that sinister path.

The sibilant voice in my head retreated, leaving behind a throbbing headache and my horrified suspicion that I had briefly been possessed by the dark side of the Force.

The rumbling, however, only grew louder, and I realized it hadn't just indicated the presence of the dark side, but the imminent collapse of the planet itself. The ground literally separated, as if sundered by an enormous hand, and distance suddenly existed between us where it hadn't before.

Kylo Ren and I stared at each other across the gap. He looked so small, lying pitiful and broken and bleeding in the snow.

'We will meet again,' Ren growled in my head, accompanied by a mental vision where I bowed on my hands and knees before him in subservience.

I narrowed my eyes and flung him the entirety of what had just passed through my thoughts. 'The dark side wanted me to end your life. Han was right. It's only a matter of time before it or Snoke destroys you.'

The ground shifted violently underneath me, and my own fragile mortality flashed before my eyes. Mine and... _Finn._

I turned and bolted away through the forest.

–

I had never imagined that the ripples of water in an ocean could resemble the same patterns found in vast expanses of sand. The waves glittered under the sun, so brilliant that I had to shade my eyes in a gesture entirely too reminiscent of my life on Jakku.

As we descended toward the planet, my breath completely stopped. We were approaching the island from my dreams. It struck me that I had never once paused to wonder if it was a real place. I landed the Falcon at the base of the staircase and exited the ship, sharing a determined nod with Chewie and R2-D2.

I breathed deeply and began the long trek up the stairs. It was identical to the path I had traversed countless times in my dreams, but anxiety flared through me with every step. What if Luke told me no – that I wasn't strong enough, or _good_ enough to be his apprentice? Yet the Force saturated this island and I felt my own power humming joyfully through my veins in response. I knew I had come too far to turn my back on it.

In the clearing at the very top of the island stood a motionless robed figure. I approached Luke Skywalker, the last living Jedi, and dug his lightsaber out of my leather satchel before I lost my nerve. I extended it toward him, willing the Force to hold my hand steady.

Luke was as silent as the stone around him. His eyes bored into the lightsaber as if it reminded him of a lifetime of failures. Then that pensive gaze turned on me, and I inhaled sharply as a slow, thick wave of energy rolled over me. It coursed through every molecule of my body and soaked up all of the events which had led me to this island. I thought of my promise to Leia to find her brother, and my own unshakable resolve to help the Resistance put an end to the First Order for good.

And then, after a terrifying moment of silence, he pressed words into my head that made my heart lurch out of beat and my cheeks ache from smiling.

'We begin now.'

* * *

Author's Note: Thank you so much for reading! I would dearly appreciate reviews. I'm currently writing a sequel with an original storyline and very excited about it! Please subscribe to my author alert or just tell me if you'd like to know when it's posted.


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